WITA NAFTA Series- Kickoff Event

Ambassador Gerónimo Gutiérrez, Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States of America, presented his credentials to President Trump on March 2, 2017. Amb. Gerónimo Gutiérrez Fernandez served as Managing Director of the North American Development Bank (NADB) headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, where his professional activity was focused on infrastructure development and financing along the U.S.-Mexico border. With a diverse 15-year career in the Mexican federal government, Amb. Gutierrez previously served in prominent positions in the areas of trade, finance, diplomacy and national security under four presidents. In 2009 and 2010, he served as Deputy Secretary for Governance and Homeland Security, where his main responsibilities were identifying threats to the country’s democratic governance and national security, and coordinating prevention and response measures. He was also part of the National Security Council’s Executive Committee. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Under Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (State Department). As Under Secretary for North America, from 2003 to 2006, he coordinated day-to-day trilateral and bilateral affairs with Mexico’s North American partners (United States and Canada) and supervised the operations of over 50 Mexican consular offices in the region. He led negotiations for the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SPP)—a prelude to the present day North American Leaders Summit—and also worked closely with other agencies on border and regional security cooperation with the U.S. and Canada. Amb. Gutierrez has also held other federal government positions as Under Secretary of Governance in the Secretaría de Gobernación (Interior Ministry), Secretaría de Economía (Commerce Department), Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Treasury Department), the Office of the President, and Banobras (Mexico’s national public works bank). Amb. Gutierrez holds both a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in Political Science from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, for which he received a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholarship.

Ambassador David MacNaughton, Canada’s Ambassador to the United States of America, presented his credentials to President Obama on March 3, 2016. As a seasoned entrepreneur and political strategist, Amb. MacNaughton brings a unique set of skills and experiences to his new role as Ambassador. In the 1980s, Amb. MacNaughton transformed the public affairs industry by building an organization that comprised government relations, public opinion research and public relations. After selling his business in 1989, Amb. MacNaughton became President of Canada’s largest government and public relations firm and subsequently North American President of the world’s largest public relations firm. From 1995 until 2003, Amb. MacNaughton was President of Strathshore Financial and was an advisor to one of Canada’s leading investment banks. Amb. MacNaughton’s public sector experience includes work at both the federal and provincial levels, including as advisor to the Minister at the Departments of Transport, Industry and Foreign Affairs. He was principal secretary to the Premier of Ontario from 2003 to 2005 and the Chairman of StrategyCorp from 2005 until his appointment. Active in community affairs, Amb. MacNaughton has served on the boards of the North York General Hospital, the Stratford Festival, the National Ski Academy, TV Ontario, the Toronto French School and the Toronto International Film Festival. Amb. MacNaughton is married and has four daughters.

Shawn Donnan leads the FT’s coverage of trade and development globally from his base in Washington. He previously served as World News Editor, coordinating the FT’s international economic and political news coverage. In that role he oversaw the paper’s award-winning coverage of major news events including the Eurozone crisis and the Arab spring. Before that he served as deputy world news editor, helping to coordinate the FT’s coverage of the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic meltdown. From 2006-2008 he was the FT’s deputy Asia news editor, overseeing the paper’s economic and political coverage of the region. He was the paper’s correspondent in Indonesia for four years before that, covering events including the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Mr. Donnan is a graduate of Boston University.

Matt Gold is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University teaching International Trade Law. He is also a consultant advising U.S. business on the United States’ rights and obligations under international trade agreements. Professor Gold was previously the Deputy Assistant USTR for North America, in which capacity he was a trade advisor to the President for the North American Leaders Summit, and among the trade advisors supporting the President for G8, G20, APEC, and Americas summits. In that position, he was also a principal negotiator at the NAFTA Free Trade Commission meetings, the Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber talks, and a participant in the talks that brought Canada and Mexico into the TPP negotiations. Professor Gold began his legal career with a federal clerkship in Chicago in 1985-86, after which he practiced international trade and customs law in New York for more than 15 years. In 2001-02, he served as the Chairman of a U.S.-Canada Binational Panel, under NAFTA Chapter 19, that reviewed U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties on Canadian magnesium. During 2003-10, Professor Gold served three civilian tours in Iraq for the Defense and State Departments advising Iraq’s Trade Minister and other senior officials on WTO accession, trade agreements, and trade capacity building.

Bruce Hirsh is the founder of Tailwind Global Strategies LLC, which provides strategic advice on global government relations matters, with a particular focus on international trade and regulatory issues. He previously held positions over 18 years in senior levels of the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Government. Until July 2016, Mr. Hirsh was the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea, and APEC. There he negotiated Japan-related provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and represented the United States at Senior Official meetings under APEC and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. From 2011 to 2014, Mr. Hirsh was Chief International Trade Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where he was Chairman Max Baucus’s principal advisor on international trade and economic matters and advised Members of the Committee and the Democratic Caucus on these issues. In that role, he negotiated the Baucus-Camp trade promotion authority legislation. Before that Mr. Hirsh served as Deputy Assistant USTR for WTO and Multilateral Affairs and lead U.S. negotiator for the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Earlier in his career, he was USTR’s Chief Counsel for Dispute Settlement and Legal Advisor to the U.S. Mission to the WTO in Geneva, Switzerland. Before joining the U.S. government in 1998, Mr. Hirsh practiced law in Washington, DC and Tokyo, Japan. He is a graduate of Brown University and Stanford Law School.

Thea Lee served until June, 2017 as Deputy Chief of Staff at the AFL-CIO, where she previously served as Policy Director and Chief International Economist. Prior to that, she worked as an international trade economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and as an editor at Dollars & Sense magazine in Boston. She received a Bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan. She has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including the PBS News Hour; CNN; Good Morning America; NPR’s All Things Considered and Marketplace; and the PBS documentary Commanding Heights. She has testified before several committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on various economic policy topics. She serves on the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, where she co-chairs the Subcommittee on Investment.

William A. Reinsch is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center where he is part of its Trade21 project and a senior advisor at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. Previously he served as President of the National Foreign Trade Council from April 2001 to May 2016. The NFTC, founded in 1914, is the oldest and largest business association dedicated solely to trade policy, export finance, international tax, and human resource issues. The organization represents some 200 companies through its offices in New York and Washington, D.C. As president, Mr. Reinsch led NFTC’s efforts in favor of open markets, in support of Eximbank and OPIC, against unilateral sanctions and in support of sound international tax policy, among many other international trade and tax issues of concern to U.S. business. From 2001 to 2016, Mr. Reinsch concurrently served as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, teaching courses in globalization, trade, and development and in trade policy. Prior to joining the NFTC, Mr. Reinsch served as the Under Secretary for Export Administration in the Department of Commerce. In that position, he administered and enforced the export control policies and antiboycott laws of the U.S. government and monitored the condition of the nation’s defense industrial base. Prior to taking this position, Mr. Reinsch spent twenty years on Capitol Hill from 1973 to 1993, most of them as senior Legislative Assistant to the late Senator John Heinz and subsequently to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV. He received a B.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife and has two adult children.

Ambassador Darci Vetter was named Diplomat in Residence, Clayton K. Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance, University of Nebraska in July 2017. Previously, served as Chief Agricultural Negotiator with the rank of Ambassador at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative from 2014 until January of this year. She was responsible for bilateral and multilateral negotiations and trade policy coordination regarding agricultural trade, including negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership agricultural package. Before returning to USTR, Ambassador Vetter served as Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at USDA, where she oversaw the department’s international activities. She had key responsibilities in international trade negotiations and export assistance programs, and coordinated USDA’s role in international food aid and trade capacity building activities. Ambassador Vetter also served as an International Trade Advisor on the Democratic Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where she advised Chairman Max Baucus and other Committee members on trade issues relating to agriculture, the environment and labor, including the 2008 Farm Bill. She began her career as a civil servant at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where she worked on both agricultural and environmental issues, including the WTO Doha Round and NAFTA implementation. Ambassador Vetter received her Master of Public Affairs degree and a Certificate in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and her undergraduate degree from Drake University in Des Moines. She grew up in Nebraska on a family farm, and lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two small children.